In a significant blow to the Toronto Blue Jays’ hopes for a playoff push, the team placed Shane Bieber on the 15-day injured list on Tuesday with inflammation in his right teres major muscle. The injury will remove a performing arm from Toronto’s already decimated rotation when the team needs it most.This isn’t new for the 2026 Jays. They’ve been working through rotation injuries all year, losing Cody Ponce, José Berríos, Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin and Trey Yesavage for significant stretches. But Bieber’s latest injury seems like a different sort of gut punch.The shoulder ailment comes after Bieber delivered 13 innings with two earned runs allowed over his last two starts. He’d given up exactly one run in three of his last four outings. His return to form is a big reason why the Jays are even back in contention, sitting two games out of the AL’s final playoff spot entering Tuesday. They’ll have to keep chasing without him, at least for the next two weeks.The Jays called up righty Chad Dallas in place of Bieber, and he, CJ Van Eyk, Josh Stephan and John Klein could all slide into the righty’s rotation spot from Triple A. But asking any of those young pitchers to perform at a consistent level in the midst of a September wild-card race is fairly unrealistic. If the Jays had real faith in any of those options, they wouldn’t have been running bullpen games in place of Yesavage’s rotation spot in recent weeks.Jameson Taillon, recovering from forearm discomfort, could move into the rotation at some point, but his return is not guaranteed. In the meantime, Bieber’s injury puts pressure on Spencer Arrighetti, who threw 3 1/3 innings in his Jays debut last week. If Arrighetti, recovering from a persistent foot issue, can deliver innings, perhaps the Jays can move the bullpen games into Bieber’s rotation spot until another starter emerges.Either way, the Jays are forced back into survival mode. It’s a position they’ve been in most of the year, as injuries and offensive slumps prevented them from rattling off a hot streak before August. But right now, with just 30 games left, the Jays can’t afford to just survive. To get to October, they’ll need to stay hot. Doing it without Bieber will be a tough task.